Topic awaiting preservation: WebShaman's Woes

Well, went to turn on the ol' computer this morning...and nothing. No peeps, no sound of turning HDD, nothing. A puzzled WebShaman eyed his blank screen.

"Huh?"

After doing a small series of tests (after clearing bleery, sleep-filled eyes from getting up at 06:00 in the morning because I have the early shift this week) I came to the following conculsion :

Mah 'puter woz broke.

Damn.

Ok. So I didn't have enough time to do any real testing...so what could be the possible problems/components?

PP - power supply. But the green LED on the MB is on...that seems to indicate that the PP at least is supplying some power.

CPU and/or cooling fan - doesn't turn, and there are no beeps. Hmmm...

Memory - again, no beeps.

Well, I tried unplugging/plugging in computer - power-on button has no effect. Computer does not turn on, there are no beeps, no Display, no BIOS.

Anyone have any advice?

hmm that's just wierd. I'd guess the power supply even with the light.

I've never heard of it but I suppose you might want to check the power button make sure it's still plugged into the MB



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

Make sure the CPU has not gotten dislodged from its socket. This can happen if it's put down on the ground/table too violently (due to the, today quite high, inertia of the heatsink).

Other than that, I'd check all power cables to the motherboard, and also the wire to the power button.

Oh, and hi

Thanks for the replies and welcome, Zir, to the Asylum.

When I get home, the first thing I will be testing is the PS (I'll just "shotgun" it - change it out with another, and see).

I do know, that I was getting some symptoms of a problem before - sometimes, instead of booting into windows, I would get an Error message saying that the Boot medium could not be found.

Normally, I associate that with the HDD. However, I disconnected the HDD, CD-RW, and the Floppy.

Still no sign of life, and no beeps.

I'm desperately hoping it is really the PS - or the Power on button (that would be nice! ) because the alternative means either MB or CPU

Good thing I have another computer...hehe.

(Edited by WebShaman on 05-23-2005 08:37)

Sounds like a it might be a bad wire(s) issue, or possibly worse, a motherboard issue. I would start at the powersupply, and work out from there. Make sure that all your wiring looks good and has no kinks, then make sure all the connections are seated properly (all with various cards and chips). If all that checks out, I'm willing to bet that it's the motherboard.

If it is an ATX power supply, be sure to check the the 5V feed is properly coupled (a second, smaller, 4-wire connection between the motherboard and PSU). If this is loose (or the PSU is faulty on this feed) then you won't normally get any beeps at all - it simply won't boot at all.

I have also seen some systems refuse to boot (no error-code beeps) when IDE cables are disconnected. It may even be possible that you have a problem with the hard-drive itself (hence intermittent 'media not found' type errors), though this could equally be a problem with the IDE controller itself.

Incidentally - is your BIOS/HDD S.M.A.R.T-capable and do you have it enabled? It is capable of warning when a failure of a hard drive is imminent.

Another thing you could check is that the graphics card is seated properly. Though you should get a series of beeps with a graphics-card related problem, I have seen dead systems due to damaged and improperly seated AGP cards.

I know this might seem a silly suggestion, but have you checked that the power switch itself is connected properly? It is possible to check power-switch function by momentarily shorting the pins to which the switch is attached (having first disconnected it). As it is a soft-switch on modern systems, this carries no risk of damage to you or the motherboard (low current), but be sure not to short anything else while testing.

==Why is it when we talk to God, it's called praying
- but when God talks to us, it's called paranoid schizophrenia?!==

(Edited by White Hawk on 05-23-2005 15:11)

I would also say the power supply. For the LED issue, it doesn't take much power to make a light blink, but starting up the computer takes a boat load of power.

Dan @ Code Town

Thanks guys!

I will be testing all your suggestions when I get home.

I luv the Asylum.

Ok...

The vote is in!

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It was the PS!

Congrats to those who suggested it first!!

Now all I need is a new one...hehe.

Once again, thanks for all the help!

I wish my computer problems were this easy to solve. =(

my last 2 major computer problems were PS related... the first took down my entire computer... MB fried and 2 of my 3 HD's and my raid card got toasted... seriously, the PS filled my room with smoke. Second time around i caught the problem early on.... woohoo!

Buy a *GOOD* power supply.

...and clean the dust out of it once in a while. Concentrated amounts of dust may become flammable and can seriously block airflow through a hot PSU.

*Oops! Double-post, sorry.*

(Edited by White Hawk on 05-24-2005 12:49)

I had a power supply explode once on the tech bench.

I was re-configuring a machine that had come back from an event, and had just finished installing a CD-burner (a two-minute job) when I plugged it in and BANG

The flash blinded me and I had blackening up one side of my face.

Having never seen a PSU do that before, the first thing I checked was the voltage switch, and lo-and-behold, it had been set to US (110-120V) instead of UK (220-240V). The moment I plugged it in, several PSU components had simply plasmarised. It is testament to good design that nothing else was damaged, but I wasn't too happy that someone had deliberately and effectively sabotaged the PC with the flick of a switch.

Now, whenever I get a machine back, it is the first thing I check - I didn't enjoy the experience that much the first time round.


My last major computer problem was random freezes (no BSoD, no event log, no soft reboot) after installing a 5.1 surround sound card. It took me so long to track down the problem that I nearly gave up on it, but now it seems like one of those things I should find and fix in no time.

I've been repairing and cleaning-up people's computers as long as I can remember, but there is always something else that you just don't know.

It strikes me that for a device designed as a logic machine, a computer can behave in the most illogical way sometimes.

quote:

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It strikes me that for a device designed as a logic machine, a computer can behave in the most illogical way sometimes.

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Sort of representing the behaviour of the spieces that created it, don't you think

Exploding PS.... ouch... My dad blew a capacitor in the livingroom (don't know the proper size but it was appr 1" big) once when I was a kid and he was "experimenting"... We where all half deaf after that and it took a week to clean everything up
/Dan

{cell 260} {Blog}
-{ ?There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. - Jeremy S. Anderson" }-